Eric Mack On-Line

Disney recently outsourced an IT department with 250 positions to overseas workers—but first, they required the people who would lose their jobs to train their replacements. Amazing.

For now, I'll leave the ethical and economic discussions to someone else. What I want you to take away from this, Computer Science student, is this question: how are you equipping yourself to create value in the workplace?

Students, this is not meant to discourage you, but to make you aware of the changing landscape in the IT field. Highly motivated people like you, some studying twice as hard as you, many willing to work for much less than you, are looking forward to the opportunity to eat your lunch.

What are you going to do about it?

Any position that can be reduced to a commodity-level responsibility is likely to change dramatically by the time you graduate with your degree. Offshoring used to be limited to labor-intensive jobs, but now (thanks to technology) it's expanding to "thinking" jobs as well. These are the jobs you're preparing for.

So, how should you respond? Learn to create value and solve problems. Be extraordinary. Whenever management makes the decision to keep or let go of personnel, they always consider the value that person brings to the organization. Since people with Computer Science degrees are plentiful, it's going to take more than just a diploma and a high GPA to succeed. It's all about working for your employer, customer, or client to create value that goes beyond your job description.

How will you prepare yourself to think critically, create value, and solve problems?